Natasha Lomas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Amazon faces more antitrust scrutiny in UK and Germany
More antitrust scrutiny for Amazon in Europe: The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog has opened an investigation into Amazon’s marketplace on the same day Germany’s regulator has confirmed it
Delivery Hero and Glovo targeted for EU antitrust inspection
Delivery Hero and Glovo have been targeted for antitrust inspections in the European Union. The European Commission announced today that it has carried out unannounced inspections of a number of onlin
UK could force E2E encrypted platforms to do CSAM-scanning
The U.K. government has tabled an amendment to the Online Safety Bill that could put it on a collision course with end-to-end encryption. It’s proposing to give the incoming internet regulator,
European parliament backs ‘historic’ reboot to EU’s digital rulebook
The European Parliament has given a final stamp of approval to two major pieces of regulation which will update the EU’s rules for digital businesses. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) will introduc
Pina Earth gets seed backing to grow sustainable forestry carbon credits
YC-backed climate tech startup Pina Earth has closed a $2.5 million seed round of funding a year after being founded and a few months since it presented at the accelerator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day
Ultrahuman busts out a smart ring to decode metabolic health
Indian fitness platform Ultrahuman is expanding its wearable portfolio by launching a smart ring to boost its ability to provide tech loving ‘biohackers’ — and, it hopes, health-conc
Meta is pulling the plug on its crypto payments wallet, Novi
Three years after Facebook announced its ill-fated push into cryptocurrency, aka the Libra project, the tech giant has signalled another scaling back of its activity — announcing Friday that Nov
Amazon agrees to drop Prime cancellation ‘dark patterns’ in Europe
Amazon has agreed to simplify the process required for cancelling its Prime membership subscription service across its sites in the European Union, both on desktop and mobile interfaces, following a s
Crypto traceability and market rules agreed by EU lawmakers
European Union lawmakers have agreed to a way forward on regulating crypto — covering the traceability of crypto assets being traded in the bloc and wider market rules, to protect against market
European Union keeps mobile roaming fees at bay for another decade
Five years ago, the European Union passed rules which largely ended mobile roaming fees for citizens traveling with their devices across borders within the bloc. Today lawmakers are reupping the regul
Google’s ‘deceptive’ account sign-up process targeted with GDPR complaints
Consumer rights groups in Europe have filed a new series of privacy complaints against Google — accusing the advertising giant of deceptive design around the account creation process that they say s
Europe proposes ban on flavored vapes
European Union lawmakers are proposing to ban flavored heated tobacco products — a category that covers vaping — in a move they say is intended to protect the health of young people after
UK urgently needs new laws on use of biometrics, warns review
An independent review of UK legislation has concluded the country urgently needs new laws to govern the use of biometric technologies and called for the government to come forward with primary legisla
Social care SaaS maker Birdie tops up with $30M
Birdie, a U.K.-based caretech software-as-a-service maker, has closed a $30 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Sofina, with Omers Ventures and Index Ventures also participating R
Uh oh! European carriers are trying to get into ‘personalized’ ad targeting
As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for individual web users&#
Italy’s data watchdog latest to warn over use of Google Analytics
Another strike against use of Google Analytics in Europe: The Italian data protection authority has found a local web publisher’s use of the popular analytics tool to be non-compliant with EU da
After EU child safety complaints, TikTok tweaks ad disclosures but profiling concerns remain
A long-running EU engagement with TikTok — initiated following a series of complaints over child safety and consumer protection complaints filed back in February 2021 — has ended, for now,
This Ukrainian deep tech startup has trained an AI to paint war art
A Ukrainian deep tech startup is launching a charity NFT project to sell AI-generated artworks with the twin goal of raising money to support people affected by Russia’s war of aggression and al
Google drops appeal against €500M antitrust news licensing fine
Google has quietly dropped its appeal in France against an antitrust fine of half a billion euros levied against it last summer for major breaches in how it negotiated to remunerate local news publish
Google Maps restrictions trigger competition scrutiny in Germany
Germany’s competition regulator is looking into possible abuses related to how Google operates its Maps product. It’s the latest proceeding the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has opened again